The nutritional requirements for each of the avian species are very diversified. Age, sex, size, activity and reproduction functions also contribute to a variance in nutritional requirements. While a healthy, adult bird can thrive on a balanced maintenance diet, growth, healing, breeding, nesting and molting all require additional nutrients. Small birds need more food for energy than larger birds do, and reproducing females require more nutrients than males do. All natural and captive diets listed in this document are based primarily on the Spring-Summer diet of these birds. During these seasons, almost all avian diets contain a substantially higher percentage of insects (nearly 100% protein) than the remainder of the year. Nearly all baby songbirds are fed a primarily insect diet.

Animal food: Sweeps insects out of air at any time of day or night, largely while in flight, either high in air or close to ground. Variety of insects from large moths and beetles to tiny flies and mosquitoes. Enormous quantities of beetles, plant lice, grasshoppers, locusts, horseflies, stable flies, etc. Drinks water while in fight by skimming surface of lakes, streams.

Animal food: Hunts on or near ground at night, eats insects, mostly night-flying moths, beetles, chinch bugs, also grasshoppers and locusts. Many insects picked up from ground or by leaping from ground into air for them.